"So you don’t forget what you’re supposed to be contemplating these next twenty four hours." Alex sat back in his chair and looked pleased with himself.

Michelle turned her hand so that the ring’s clear stone caught the light. The ring was not feminine but it wasn’t as masculine as some of the rings she’d seen. Above the stone was the name ‘Rave’ with the high school inscribed beneath the stone. On one side of the ring was a picture of a horse and on the other was a mountain scene. On the stone itself was the year ‘1995’ in silver script, matching the metal of the ring. Michelle noted that nothing could tie the ring to Alex without a doubt, all the information was very vague. A heart warming thought wiggled into the back of her mind and she slipped the ring off, looking along the inside of the band.

And found what she somehow knew would be there. A small inscription reading, ‘To Michelle with love and devotion. Alex.’ She looked up and a smile lighted her eyes. Alex just nodded slightly. The smile crept to Michelle’s trembling lips and she put the ring back on her ring finger. It struck her that the ring fit almost perfectly, just a bit on the loose side.

"How is it that a ring that would fit you also fits me?" she asked with a quizzical shake of her head.

In answer Alex took her left hand and compared her ring finger to his pinky. His small pinky was slightly larger than her own finger. He shrugged.

Then the light turned on in Michelle’s mind. "You didn’t buy this ring for you but for me!" she accused happily. "That’s why you didn’t put your first name on it," Michelle puzzled out. And the last piece clicked into place. "And that’s also why you put my birthstone in the setting! How did you explain that to your parents, considering that your stone would have been purple?"

Alex chuckled. "That was easy. I had all the credits I needed by April so that’s when I graduated. Then I just told my parents that I wanted the stone to be that of my graduation." Alex put on a look of feigned amazement. "It wasn’t till later that I realized that the diamond was also your birth stone. What a coincidence!"

Michelle began to cuff Alex’s arm and Alex caught her hand. In place of the light smile that had been there before, his face was now intent on Michelle’s, an intense gleam in his eyes. Michelle stiffened and Alex caught the tension that quickly gathered in her shoulders. He dropped her hand and glanced away, rejected. Michelle bit her lower lip and fought the threatening tears.

"You’re still scared of me," he dully noted. His face was racked with anguish and Michelle moaned deep in her throat. "What will it take to convince you that you can trust me?" His voice was soft and held none of the intensity that still burned in his eyes.

"No, it’s not that. It’s just that you surprised me," Michelle started.

"Michelle, you don’t have to lie to me. I saw terror in your eyes when I touched you. How could you stand to hug me earlier? It must have been killing you just to touch me."

Michelle tentatively reached out a hand but pulled it back when she saw the pain deep in Alex’s eyes. Pain and the desire that had startled her before. Alex shook his head, taking her gesture as proof to his statement. He wasn’t angry, not with Michelle anyway. He was angry with himself for letting himself get out of control in the first place. He looked up at the sound of Michelle’s voice.

"Alex, it’s not your touch! It’s that look in your eyes," she explained in a frail whisper. "It’s so intense. Just like when you," Michelle could not go on due to the shivers that were running up and down her body. She bowed her head and gave in to the tears that had building. They were silent tears, salty droplets that slid smoothly down her cheeks and dropped to her shirt.

Alex didn’t want to touch her for fear of making it worse. She just sat there, staring at him with those accusing eyes, eyes that would shatter his heart before anything else would.

"Stop looking at me, Alex," Michelle weakly said. "Your eyes burn into me like the sun. When you see me, I want you to want me, not this body that houses me." She wiped the tears off her face and looked into Alex’s eyes.

Alex was stunned. "You think I love you only for your body?" He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted it up, looking down into her face. "I love you for you, Michelle. When your hairs turn gray and your face gathers wrinkles I’ll still love you. When did you begin to doubt my sincerity?"

Michelle tried to pull her chin from his hand but she tried in vain. When she found her efforts would be fruitless she looked into Alex, trying to will him into letting her go. For once it didn’t work. Michelle couldn’t stand to see the love shining from his brown eyes, the love that she had been mistaking for lust. It was her mistake and now it was looking her in the face.

"I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t realize."

The young man dropped her chin and then his gaze, rubbing his hands over his face. "It’s my fault too. I never really told you how I felt. Whenever I thought I was telling you, you must have figured that I was joking. Do you realize now that I said everything with the utmost truth and openness?" When Michelle nodded he smiled sadly.

The silence stretched but it was complex silence. Michelle felt shame for her underestimation of Alex and her cheeks burned with it. Alex didn’t know what else to do to convince Michelle of his feelings and the fact that Michelle hadn’t spoken a word yet was not promising in his mind.

Michelle took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, taking in with that breath the whole of Alex’s point.

"Come on, Alex. Let’s go start training that colt of yours." Michelle was still very quiet but her self-assurance was back along with the spirit in her blue eyes.

They walked out to the barn and stood watching the colt as he played with Bonnie’s tail. The mare seemed to have a long, suffering look on her horsy face. The mare would flick her long tail over Spirit’s back and he would walk in a wobbly circle, trying to snatch the tickling ends. The two humans laughed at the serendipitous game that they had intruded upon.

With his eyes still on his colt Alex asked, "How are we supposed to train something so guileless?"

Michelle looked gently upon the spindly piebald. "Well, the real training won’t start for a while yet. What we will do is get him to follow you around like a second shadow. We’ll work on ground directions and trust." Michelle nodded her head, as if agreeing with some inner voice and Alex knew that she would follow in her father’s footsteps as strongly as he knew his own name.

"You’re the boss," was all he said as he stepped into the large stall.

Michelle followed him in and the colt stopped his game to inspect the newcomers. With Alex Spirit showed limited recognition but with Michelle he cowered behind the large mare’s legs. As Alex coaxed the small colt away from the security of Bonnie’s bulk, Michelle silently left the stall and came back with warm, very mushy grain in a bowl. She got down on her knees and, with one slow, crawling step at a time, advanced upon Spirit. When the colt signaled that Michelle was as close as she would get without bodily harm – a sign that went completely over Alex’s head – she placed the bowl on the ground and sat back on her heels, waiting. It took a few minutes but slowly the colt eased away from his ‘dam’ and mince-stepped over to the bowl. Just before he dipped his muzzle into the grain Michelle slid her hand into it and took a handful herself. The colt shied a little bit but the smell of the mush was too enticing. He was soon slurping the grain mush, as close to a milk consistency as possible. When he was nearly half way through the meal and finally showing signs of relaxation, Michelle placed her grain filled hand beneath Spirit’s nose. He slurped that up with out thinking twice and along with the grain, learned Michelle’s scent.

Alex watched all this with avid fascination. The way that this girl knew the horses was uncanny and yet, it was second nature to her. If he commented on it she would shrug it off or say that you just have to know what to look for. He just shook his head and laughed to himself.

When the colt had finally finished, and cleaned off Michelle’s hand in the process, he butt his head against Michelle’s stomach, smearing little globules of grain that had gotten stuck to his whiskers all over her shirt. Her silvery peals of laughter rang out and the colt jerked his head up, small ears flicking this way and that. Michelle lowered her voice and began to rub the colt’s neck, working up toward the jowls. She continued her slow strokes along the muzzle and eventually up and down the front of Spirit’s face, paying special attention to the forehead and the little hair that formed his bangs. Spirit’s eyes closed in contentment and he emulated Bonnie’s habit of shifting her hind feet when she was happy.

"Am I going to have to do that too?" Alex asked.

Michelle blinked. "I’m sorry? Oh, no, no, you won’t have to do this. He already knows you, this was just to get him and me acquainted. Besides, I don’t think he could eat another mouthful." This was punctuated with an ‘uff’ for Spirit had butt her in the stomach again. "Then again, maybe he could."

She completely forgets about the world around her when she’s with the horses, Alex thought to himself. Her whole being is focused on the horse and the goal and the horse responds to it. Her doggedness reassures the horse and makes it willing. She’d even forgotten that I was here, he laughed to himself.

Michelle stood up and brushed clinging bits of hay off her knees and wiped the congealing mush off her shirt. "Okay, I’m going to show you how to put a halter on a baby horse. He’s not going to like it but it might be easier considering that he wasn’t with the Roamers for very long. Now he might jerk back and that’s okay, just back off your self a little bit and let him come to you.

"Play with the halter a little bit, let it jingle and catch the light. It’ll distract him and, most importantly, it’ll make him curious. It’s his curiosity that you want because he’ll be more willing to come towards the halter. Now, make him happy and rub him and everything while I go to get the halter." Michelle walked out of the stall and returned with a halter smaller than any one he’d ever seen.

Michelle must have seen it in his eyes. "Did you expect me to use the same halter I use on Fancy?" she teased.

Alex feigned indignation and looked down his nose at her. She just continued to laugh at him and Spirit snorted.

"Oh, so now you’re on her side, huh?" he asked the colt. "Well, fine, go ahead and laugh. I’ll get my chance."

Michelle finally stopped laughing and Spirit settled down. "Okay, okay, with all seriousness," Michelle began. Alex knew she was still laughing at him because those blue eyes danced with a lively glint. Michelle positioned herself beside Spirit’s head and displayed the dark halter in front of the colt’s nose for his inspection. He carefully snuffed at it and nudged it a few times to see what it would do. When it lightly banged him on the nose, he stamped an outraged hoof and took it in his teeth, swinging it left and right.

"Well, well, don’t we have a bit of a temper?" Michelle observed.

"Humph. He’s acting more like your horse already. Boy, he picks things up quickly."

Michelle arched an elegant eyebrow. "Are you insinuating that I have a temper? I haven’t the faintest-"

Alex chuckled deep in his throat. "Michelle, you should have been a red head! You may not voice what’s on your mind but that doesn’t mean that I can’t see it in your eyes."

"Anyway," Michelle blatantly tried to change the subject. Alex was getting that way again and if he distracted her from Spirit and whisked her away to an isolated place- "As I was trying to demonstrate. I’m just letting him get the smell and he seems to have a prior grudge against this particular halter. What I’m going to do now is lightly rub the halter up the sides of his face and around his neck so he doesn’t think of it as a foreign object," she explained as she was demonstrating.

"The one thing that you have to realize about horses: You can convince them of practically anything. If you can convince them that’s it’s okay, they won’t hesitate. It’s even easier if you have their complete trust. Just like Fancy is with me. She trusts me blindly and would do anything I asked of her. It’s just a horse’s nature, I guess."

Michelle continued the instruction. She explained to him how to undo the buckle so it doesn’t startle the colt and how to proceed to place the halter on the head of the horse. It took a couple of times but she eventually did he buckle around Spirit’s poll and finished with a flourish. "See? It took a few tries but when he realized that it wouldn’t hurt him then he let me put it on." Michelle laughed out loud as Spirit tried to shake the halter off. His short little mane was swinging in every direction as Spirit wrestled with the secured headgear. He even tried scraping his head on his legs and the side of the stall but to no avail. The spirited colt eventually gave up and stood there looking at Michelle with a puzzled tilt to his head. As if he was asking, "What is this thing that you’ve harnessed me with?"

The young woman then showed Alex how to go about removing the halter. She undid the buckle with her right hand and eased the halter off the diminutive head with her right hand reaching underneath the Spirit’s throatlatch to guide the right side of the halter off. The contraption was off much faster than it was put on, the removal much helped by the quick steps back of the colt’s tiny, black, hooves. Spirit gave one good shake of his head and whuffled when he found no more restraints.

Michelle held the halter out to Alex and he took it with a trace of trepidation. The colt vigorously nodded his head up and down and stamped his little hoof, punctuated by a disgusted snort when Alex took Michelle’s spot at the left side of Spirit’s head. Alex held out the halter for re-inspection and backed a few more steps.

"Aw, come on, little guy," Alex wheedled. "Please? Just one more time."

The colt responded to Alex’s voice. Michelle sucked in her breath as the colt lowered his head so Alex could easily slip the halter over his head. With unsteady hands Alex did up the buckle and hooked the lead rope that Michelle held out to him onto the ring beneath Spirit’s chin.

Alex looked up at Michelle with such a boyish grin that Michelle couldn’t help but grin back. The boy stood up and tried to lead Spirit out of the stall but the little colt put all of his effort into not moving an inch. His neck was stretched out as far as it would go and his legs were straining against the steady pressure that Alex was exerting on the lead rope.

"Don’t fight him, Alex. Try talking to him again, it worked last time," Michelle reminded him.

Alex allowed the rope to become slack between him and the colt. As soon as the pressure was gone Spirit relaxed and looked guilelessly into Alex’s eyes, acting like nothing was wrong. "You little bugger," Alex muttered at the horse. Spirit perked up his ears and dipped his head down to whuffle the hay on the ground.

"You see," Alex directed at Michelle, "how ashamed he is?"

"Hate to break your bubble, Alex, but I think he’s just trying to hide the smirk that’s from beating you. To think that a slight mite like him could best an eighteen year-old man." Michelle shook her head in disbelief, her lips twitching with the effort not to smile.

Alex merely grunted. "We’ll see about that," he muttered to himself.

Alex’s voice became sickly sweet as he tried to convince Spirit that he wanted to come out of the stall(which he later told Michelle was a bunch of bull). After five minutes of pleading and wheedling and comprising, Alex enticed Spirit out of the stall. Once Bonnie had tried to call Spirit back but Michelle averted the disaster by shoving the mare’s nose beneath her arm.

Step by slow reluctant step, Alex guided the colt out of the barn and then looked at Michelle with a look of the utmost accomplishment.

"Now we, I mean you can take him to the round pin and we’ll work on the trust," she explained. When Alex didn’t move she shooed him along like a mother hen with an errant chick and followed along watching how Alex led the colt.

"Alex, let the rope have a little more slack between you two. Yeah, that’s right," Michelle called out.

The rest of the way to the training pin was much of the same. Michelle called out instruction and Alex corrected or Alex called out questions and Michelle answered to the best of her ability.

The round pin was an oval shaped corral with the plastic bars sloping inward, toward the center of the pin so as to make it appear to the horses that they can’t jump it. It was a simple dirt corral with two sliding bars making up the ‘door.’ When the trio arrived, Michelle opened the door and let Alex lead the excited colt in.

It was the first time that Spirit had really been outside since Alex had saved him, and the day was turning out to be rather nice. The colt lifted each hoof up high and planted it down with a small puff of dust. His short tail was up as high as he could carry it and his ears were trying to flick every which way at once.

"Why don’t you just lead Spirit around a bit, let him get used to the feel of the halter and all," Michelle called over her shoulder as she tugged the stubborn bars back into place, making the corral complete once more.

She strode to the middle of the arena and watched Alex as he made his way around the oblong perimeter. When he had done this two more times she signaled that he stop. Spirit continued walking until Alex finally had to follow him in order to retain his right arm.

"No!" Michelle reprimanded sharply. "Never let him get the upper hand. It’s a partnership but you have to make it clear that you have as much power as he does. In any herd you’ll notice that when a horse gets out of line, the lead mare will nip and kick to put the mare back in her place and make clear again who the lead mare is. Once this is established there are very few problems. All a horse wants in to know where he is in the herd. So," Michelle gestured Alex to turn Sprit around and try stopping in the same exact spot again.

"That’s important," she informed Alex. "Repetition is the best way to train a horse. Do it the same every time and things will go much smoother." She clapped when Spirit stopped at Alex’s cue. "See? Now pat him and let him know that that was right. Another thing with horses in a herd is that after a scolding they make nice again."

When Alex had finished rewarding Spirit, Michelle had them repeat this exercise too. When this was done Michelle instructed Alex to take the colt through figure eights, correcting and praising when it was appropriate. When Alex wasn’t concentrating completely on the task at hand, he was admiring his instructor.

Michelle encouraged when Alex was getting frustrated and gently admonished when either he was wrong or Spirit was doing something wrong that Alex wasn’t correcting fast enough.

"Always correct," Michelle later lectured, "even if it’s a little late. If you let him get away with it once, then he’ll think he can get away with it next time and soon you’ll have a horse that has acquired a bad habit such as pulling down on the bit or biting.

"There, stop!" Michelle berated Alex so loudly that Spirit snorted and stopped of his own accord. "Do know what he did wrong, Alex?" At Alex’s dubious face Michelle went on. "Did you feel how Spirit sped up and strained against the lead rope? Now, do you know why he did that?" Michelle paused to let Alex answer.

The boy stood there for a moment and began to study what was ahead of them, what Spirit would have been walking towards. Another corral, the workers’ quarters, the barn, the saddle shed. . .

That was it! The barn! Michelle could see it in his eyes that Alex had figured it out. She smiled at him like a teacher at a prize pupil. "Very good, Alex. You’re starting to think like a horse now. That’s going to be your number one tool to training this horse because once you start seeing what he might do before he does it you will truly be training him to be your partner. You won’t have to scold, you’ll just avoid the situation and soon ‘the situation’ will no longer be a problem.

"You see, with Fancy every one thinks she is this perfect horse. Yet just like there’s no perfect rider, there is also no perfect horse. It’s just that with her, I’ve gotten to the point that I can tell what she’s ‘thinking’ by the way that she tenses her muscles or mouths the bit or hold her ears or. . . Oh, there’s tons of signals," she finished exasperatedly, "you just have to find out what to look for, and for each horse the signals might be marginally different but not much. Come over here and give yourselves a break," Michelle conceded when Alex’s eyes glazed over at the thought that he might have to listen to another of Michelle’s lectures while on his feet.

The new-born trainer hid her pleased smile as she watched man and horse walk across the corral, both reading each other and tentatively responding to the signals that they thought they were picking up. Spirit no longer pulled against the rope but constantly cocked his left ear towards Alex. Alex knew that was good but he didn’t yet know why. She also saw how Alex jingled the halter to retain Spirit’s full attention when he sensed the colt wanting to look towards the barn. Yes, they had definitely made progress already.

When Alex drew nearer Michelle dissolved her smile and put on her ‘lesson face.’ "Just jump up here beside me and hold the rope so Spirit stays in front of you." She waited while Alex got settled and was so surprised when Spirit settled his small head on Alex’s knee that she almost lost her already precarious perch atop the corral bars. Well, well, this might be easier than I thought, Michelle said to herself.